If you’re a fan of both the Knives Out films and ’80s pop (or internet pranks), prepare for your two interests to come together in an unexpected way: a scene in the franchise’s most recent volume, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, was filmed in the same space as the video for Rick Astley’s 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” — a fact confirmed by director Rian Johnson.

In the film, young priest Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) meets with his superiors in a church gymnasium. But in real life, the space is not a church — it’s London’s Harrow Club, a youth club that can be rented out by the general public for events like film shoots … or music video shoots. Almost 40 years earlier, Rick Astley sang and danced in front of the same iconic windows in his video for “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

While the song was a hit upon release, hitting #1 in 25 countries including the US and UK, it developed a second life in 2007 as part of “rickrolling” — an internet prank in which victims were led to believe that a link would lead them to a different website, only to find that it actually led to Astley’s video.

Due to the popularity of rickrolling, the video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” has been seen over 1.5 billion times on YouTube as of 2025. So, it’s no surprise that a fan would eventually catch on to the location.

Bluesky user Jay Hulme wrote, “Just watched the new Knives Out and I think it’s really important you know that the scene in the Seminary’s Gym is filmed in the same place Rick Astley filmed the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up. I saw the window tracery and immediately made my friends pause the film so I could tell them.”

Knives Out director Rian Johnson then confirmed, writing on Bluesky “This is true and I was the only one on set excited about it (and playing the song on my phone to blank stares)”

This is true and I was the only one on set excited about it (and playing the song on my phone to blank stares)

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— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson.bsky.social) December 29, 2025 at 11:21 PM

Astley, 59, has not weighed in, though he’s still quite busy: in the UK, he hosted the BBC’s Rick Astley Rocks New Year’s Eve special, and will be touring the UK in spring 2026. But he’d probably feel good about being a topic of internet discussion — in 2023, he revealed that “rickrolling” revitalized his career, telling BBC North West Tonight (per People), “Without my old songs and without the Rickrolling thing and people being aware of that video on the internet in the way that they are — it’s got its own little universe almost — I wouldn’t have got the invite for Glastonbury,” the enormous UK music festival that he played in 2023.